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Number of Homeless Female Veterans Rises Sharply, Report Finds

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Number of Homeless Female Veterans Rises Sharply, Report Finds

By Kristina Shevory February 6, 2012 9:05 amFebruary 6, 2012 9:05 am

The number of homeless female veterans more than doubled from 2006 to 2010, and they will remain at risk of abuse and lack of shelter without better services from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a recently released government report.

The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, estimated that the ranks of homeless female veterans had risen more than 140 percent since 2006, to 3,328 in fiscal 2010. The report cautions, however, that the Veterans Affairs data is limited and cannot be generalized.

The veterans department does not track homeless female veterans and their needs, making it difficult for the agency to allocate grants to providers, the report said. The data becomes even more important in light of the growing numbers of women who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The accountability office urged Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which works with the V.A. to provide veteran housing, to collaborate on this data collection.

About two thirds of homeless female veterans are 40 to 59 years old and many have minor children. Over one-third are disabled.

Female veterans have a constellation of problems in finding housing, the report said. Many women did not know about veteran housing, while others experienced long wait times. When a homeless veteran applies for housing, they are supposed to get a referral to a shelter or other temporary housing while they wait. Nearly a quarter of Veterans Affairs Medical Center homeless coordinators did not have short-term housing plans for female veterans, the report found.

Women veterans also waited an average of four months for affordable housing through the H.U.D.-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program, run collaboratively by the two agencies, the report found.

Many homeless women veterans have children and face limited housing choices for their family. More than 60 percent of the V.A.’s Grant and Per Diem programs, which finance community agencies that help homeless veterans, do not accept children. Many of those programs that do accept children restrict their ages and their number.

Safety is also a concern for homeless female veterans. There have been some reports of sexual harassment or assault on women living in Grant and Per Diem program housing over the last five years. While the V.A. does not have safety and security standards for such housing, it is now evaluating them in response to a report by the department’s Inspector General.

The economic downturn has also not been kind to veterans. Unemployment is higher for veterans than the general population, 13.1 percent in December compared with 8.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among veterans 20 to 24 years old, the unemployment rate has averaged 30 percent.

The issue of female homeless veterans has become more pronounced as more women choose to serve in the military. The number of women in the military since 1990 has doubled to 1.8 million, or 8 percent of the total armed forces.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has set a goal of getting all homeless veterans off the streets by 2015, and has had some initial success. The number of homeless veterans fell by about 12 percent over the last year. There were nearly 67,500 homeless veterans on a single night in January 2011, down from 76,000 in 2010, according to the department.

Every January, the veterans department joins nonprofits and government agencies to count the number of homeless. The results of this year’s tally will be released later this year.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Housing and Urban Development said they generally agreed with the findings of the accountability office report.

Kristina Shevory served eight years in the Army as a linguist. She has written for The New York Times, Wired, Business Week and, most recently, The Atlantic. You can follow her on Twitter at @shevory.

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